Joe Flacco Told Teammates to Run Onto Field & Tackle Punt Returner on Final Play of Super Bowl

The lighting problems at this year's Super Bowl almost became the second most laughable event in New Orleans. Joe Flacco, the Ravens quarterback and Super Bowl MVP, instructed his teammates to illegally run off the sidelines and tackle the 49ers punt returner, Ted Ginn Jr., at the end of the Super Bowl if it looked like he was going to score.

After Baltimore took a safety near the game's end, the team was forced to kick off to the dangerous Ginn with a mere four seconds remaining in the game. A successful run-back would have won the 49ers the game. To prevent this from happening, Flacco urged his teammates to break all the rules and win at all costs.

Apparently, ol' Joe, after playing in the league for years, still doesn't realize that very sensitive microphones are used by the NFL Network, so his conversation was recorded word-for-word and now lives online. And here's what he said:

"Hey, if he breaks it, if he busts this for some reason, tackle him. Go tackle him. I don't know what the rule is on that but ... I'm going to."

His theory was that with so little time left on the clock, it was worth it for some random player to run off the sidelines, tackle Ginn, and illegally prevent a touchdown. After all, what's the worst that could happen?

Well, Joe, the worst would not have been a 15-yard penalty. Instead, it would have given the 49ers a Super Bowl-winning touchdown with zero seconds left.

Per the NFL rulebook, the play would have fallen into the category of a "palpably unfair act." The rule (Rule 5. Section 1. Article 4) states that the penalty for a Palpably Unfair Act is as follows: "Offender may be disqualiified. The Referee, after consulting his crew, enforces any such distance penalty as they consider equitable and irrespective of any other specified code penaltyy. The Referee may award a score."

So, if one of Flacco's teammates would have listened to his ridiculous idea, the Ravens probably would have automatically lost the Super Bowl.

The take-away here is pretty obvious - Joe Flacco, while being an elite player, is in no way an elite special teams coach. We hope his trip to Disneyland was better than his brilliant idea to trip Ted Ginn, Jr.